Managing Editor Audrey Cooper said Wednesday that the newspaper's style council decided to eliminate the term because of a long-standing policy against using racial slurs.

Cooper said in a statement that "'redskin' is a patently racist term." The Chronicle joins several other publications that have made the same decision, including the Portland Oregonian, the Kansas City Star and Slate.com.

The debate about whether the term is in fact an epithet has raged for decades. The Chronicle says it revisited the issue last month at the request of Scott Ostler, one of its sports columnists. Cooper says the paper will simply refer to the team as "Washington" in most cases.

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